Baxter had promised him support, if it was available, in the form of his ship’s boats. Propelled by oar and sail, they could provide reinforcements of about twenty to thirty men for the expedition. That promise had been made two days ago at the Boca Grande Passage, eight miles to the west. However, no boats had arrived and Wake had decided that he should go on ahead without waiting for reinforcements that might never arrive. The drone of the insects assisted him in making this decision, but he told himself that it was the element of surprise that was the real deciding factor.
The day was slow torture. The urge to get away from the jungle was overwhelming. The hours dragged by, Wake ordering the men to try to get as much sleep as possible since they would be moving all night and possibly fighting all the next day. Finally the sun started its slow descent to the west. Slowly and almost imperceptibly the day began its flaming final display.
Looking out to the islands to the west of the sloop, Wake saw the indescribable colors of a Florida sunset slowly paint the sky. The cottony clouds provided brighter islands in the sea of pastels that covered the world above. Birds of pink and blue and green glided through the sky as the sunset approached, apparently to add even more color to this beautiful scene. Wake thought that the beauty of this exotic place was cruelly expensive to behold, for one had to first brave the dangers that guarded that beauty. And he thought of the night and day to come. He wondered if he would die in a place ironically called Peace River. Then he thought of the one he always thought of while watching the sun set into the far-off sea.
Ten hours later they were off Alligator Creek, just a few miles from Punta Gorda. The men were very tired, having rowed with the sweeps for most of the way. The ponderous sloop had slowly moved along the coast of Charlotte Harbor, that vast twenty- mile bay that expanded east and north into the body of Florida. Wake ordered a rest and the crew collapsed over the looms of the oars, gasping in the humid, still night. Hardin was in the bow, searching for any movement or alarm on the coast ahead.
After a thirty-minute rest, they were back at it again, with Wake steering out and around the large point of land called Punta Gorda, or “fat point” as it translated into English. Slowly a land breeze came up from the east, and the men set the sails and gratefully stared to the gradually lightening horizon. Wake set a regular watch of men and told the rest to get as much sleep as they could. The off-duty crewmen sank down onto the deck where they stood and immediately were dozing, while the rest of the crew stared off around them in the growing light to catch a sight of an enemy vessel or land contingent.
As they turned northeasterly at the mouth of the Peace River, the sun started to make its arrival. The wind turned up a bit, and the sloop, now close-hauled on the starboard tack with all sail set, was moving fast on the smooth water. Wake, steering her himself into the river and relying on a hand-drawn diagram of the sandbars, had a fleeting thought of how beautiful this moment was and how much Linda would appreciate it were she there now.
Moments later, Wilson called out from the crosstrees that he saw a sloop and a schooner at anchor ahead, close by the northern shore. Instantly, the entire crew was awake and staring to the shoreline off the port bow near a point of land with live oaks growing prominently. Wake gave Hardin his glass and told him to go aloft and report, whereupon the bosun climbed the shrouds with surprising rapidity and turned his attention to the vessels anchored some two miles distant.
“Small sloop of about twenty-five feet, sir. Schooner of about forty feet, sir. Both have what may be bales a cotton on deck. Men’re aboard and weighin’ the anchors, I think, sir,” came the call from aloft.
“Very well, Hardin. Durlon, please clear for action, send up the colors, and prepare to fire a shot near those vessels.”
The rush of activity on deck was interrupted by another report from aloft. “Sir, their anchors are hove and sails bein’ set. They gonna head upriver. It’ll be a beat upwind for them ’n us, sure as hell.”
The enemy craft were going to run for it—up a river they knew well. But Rosalie had the advantage of already being under way and moving fast. The distance between the two forces diminished quickly. They were now about a mile and a half away, almost in range.
The Rosey’s twelve-pounder was set up on deck directly aft of the mast, so that any fire directly ahead was difficult. With all the sails, shrouds, stays, and halyards in front of the cannon, it was too dangerous to fire. Instead, the Rosalie would have to bear off or up a bit so that the gun could be aimed over the deck aft of the bow and past all the rigging. It made bow chases difficult. Still, it could be done.
“I will luff the ship up into the wind, Durlon. Fire your warning shot when they safely bear. You won’t have much time before I have to fall back onto the course again.”
Durlon’s reply was muttered as he concentrated on his great metal pet. In addition to putting his gun crew through the prescribed regulation loading and aiming drill, he began to talk softly to the gun, stroking the barrel and looking forward to the enemy ships. Those ships now had all their sail set and were also heading upwind, about a mile ahead.
“Watch for shallow water, men. They know the river and we do not. Hardin, you will be crucial on that issue.”
Wake was mentally doing the geometry, trying to figure out where the Rebel crafts would be before they would tack. He thought that it would be good to hit them when they were slowed down, making their turn through the wind.
“Durlon, fire when ready. The next one will be for effect in their rigging!”
The crew smiled at the thought that their captain was trying to save the vessels for seizure, but came back to their senses when the Rosalie slid to windward and started shaking her rig as the sails luffed. The noise of the slapping jib and the thundering mainsail was overcome by the deep boom of the cannon. The gun jumped backward on the recoil and the crew quickly went about reloading it.
The shot landed one hundred feet astern of the sloop, which was astern of the schooner. The bearing was right, but the mast and rigging still prevented a good aim toward the enemy. Wake’s mind did more calculations.
“Got to get closer,” came the useless observation from aloft. Durlon and the gun crew did not reply but instead gave the bosun dark looks that told of their thoughts.
“I will luff again when they slow and tack, Durlon, and when I do, then fire into their rigging,” Wake said quietly.
“Aye aye, sir. Don’t worry, I won’t hole ’em,” said a grinning Durlon as he stroked his gun again.
“And see that ya don’t set the cotton afire also, ya crazy muzzle lover,” yelled Hardin from the rigging. Everyone’s voice was tense by now, and the men were silently imploring the enemy to stop and surrender their ships and cargo.
The sloop passed the schooner to windward and both Confederate vessels sailed up and across the river, now less than a mile from the Rosalie. Hardin reported that they were easing their sheets and starting to slow. Wake then made his move and brought the large tiller down to leeward, luffing the Rosalie even more than he had before.
The gun blasted again, and the rigging of the schooner suddenly went from being taut and orderly to loose and ragged. Her sails started to shudder, and they could hear her crew yelling at each other. The crew of the Rosalie promptly started cheering and hitting Durlon on the back. Even Hardin called down from his perch and offered a congratulatory word. Wake, still steering and holding her now back on course, decided to go after the schooner first. He would lay his vessel alongside her and board her with his crew armed to the teeth. The schooner had not surrendered yet and was still trying to sail away. The enemy sailors were staring at the image of death or capture fast surging towards them.
“Hardin, come down and arm the crew for boarding. Men, we will go alongside and capture her!” Wake found himself yelling and getting caught up
in the enthusiasm of the crew, much to his surprise. His heart was beating faster and faster, and he knew that victory was close.
And then he felt it. . . .
He knew what that feeling was, and what came next. He felt the Rosalie slow a bit. The rudder got sluggish and the keel started to plow the mud below. Wake looked over the side to see the bottom in clear detail as his ship slowly ground to a halt on a sandbar.
It suddenly was very quiet. The sails were still full and drawing silently. She was still heeled. Everything was the same as before except that she was as still in the water as a rock. Wake looked at the schooner, slowly sailing away. He couldn’t believe it. His disbelief turned to anger, and he ordered the sails hauled in even more and half the crew in the water to shove off with the other half on the leeward gunwale to heel her over even more. This attempt to lighten her worked a bit and they gained twenty feet but then took the ground once more. This time it was more solid.
It took the Rebels awhile to realize that their pursuer was no longer sailing forward. When they did, they let loose a yell that got louder as it progressed, until it sounded like what Wake thought an Indian war cry would sound like. Or it was more like a raging animal? After it ended in a shriek, several puffs of smoke could be seen on the deck of the schooner. They were firing symbolic shots from their muskets at him, Wake thought with a cold anger. The sloop, now far ahead, was followed slowly by the schooner up the river, Rebel flags at the peaks of their mainsails.
The tide was still on the flood and the wind served to heel them over, Wake observed with a little hope. He looked at Hardin, who was already getting the dinghy alongside to move the kedge anchor out forward of the ship.
“Durlon, please get your ammunition over to leeward, along with the crew. Hardin, good work on that kedge. The tide’s a flood, lads, so we’ll be off after ’em in a bit. We’ve got ’em bottled up in the river, so those vessels will be ours, by God!”
Wake hoped that this sounded inspiring. He certainly meant it to be. He also hoped that it would be true. Was it possible that Hardin’s head shook just a bit?
“Aye, sir, we’ve got ’em where we want ’em now,” said Durlon, who was silenced by Hardin yelling for slack in the anchor rode. The other sailors gave no clue to their thoughts and turned stone-faced to their duties.
As the enemy vessels were rounding a curve of the river far ahead, the tide finally lifted the Rosalie off the shoal. Wake immediately gave orders to trim the sloop for beating upwind and up the river. With a man aloft now, she sailed close-hauled to the east and northeast as the river narrowed from a mile wide to half that with islands and curves to deal with. The lookout could not see the Confederates ahead and searched the shoreline to see if they were hidden, for the crew desperately wanted to make the captures this time. They talked of nothing else, and Wake saw them turning to their work without verbal or silent complaint.
It was slow going, and by midday Wake decided that it was time to man the sweeps because the channel had become too narrow to tack. He kept the pace slow and deliberate, fighting the ebb tide, which had set, and the heat as the morning land breeze faded away into the noon calm.
When the afternoon thunderstorm started to build, the men rejoiced in its wind. On the fourth hour of working the sweep oars, the lookout called out two small vessels behind them, coming upriver from the mouth under sail. He thought they could be boats from the Gem of the Sea, but the distance was too great to be sure. For the first time since the grounding, Wake started to feel better. He was relatively sure that they had not passed the prey, hidden among the islands or shoreline, and so when the night finally fell on that eventful day he gave the order to anchor in midstream. Half the crew was put on watch, with muskets and cutlasses in their hands ready for action and the twelve-pounder loaded with grapeshot. The other half was instantly asleep, right on the deck, ready for action if needed. Wake took the first watch while Hardin snored away on the afterdeck.
As the clouds from the early evening sailed through the night off to the west and each of the on-watch crew peered out at his assigned sector, Wake sat down on the transom board and thought about the situation. He had no chart of the river, only a diagram that covered the first several miles. He was already upriver beyond that. He possibly had reinforcements coming upriver behind him. Or they could be the enemy, whose domain he was in the midst of. He didn’t know their strength or location. The schooner and the sloop were probably further upriver. So the choices were: retreat down the river, go up the river after the enemy vessels, or stay put.
Wake knew the answer. Sighing, he looked aloft at the stars sprinkled randomly like silver dust on a black felt cloth. They seemed soft and gentle, bringing memories of Linda and their moments together. The thud of the twelve-pounder handspike on the deck, and the accompanying curse of Durlon, brought his thoughts back to the war and the decisions he had to make. Feeling far older than his twenty-five years and as if this war were his life, Wake thought of his previous life in the merchant marine as belonging to someone else, far away and long ago. That man who sailed schooners on the New England coast knew about sailors and the sea, but nothing about war and doing your best to kill other men before they killed you on a god-forsaken coast that few even wanted. That other man that he used to be had no understanding of the lethal consequences of command decisions in war, or even of the consequences of falling in love with an “enemy” girl, whose father would kill you in the beat of a heart if he knew of it. The stars above had no answers for him, just reminders of his past, as they glittered across the sky in disinterested witness to his dilemma.
Wake remembered that day in May when he’d met Linda. The hot, musty guard room at the entrance to the fort, where he had gone to pass on a message from the admiral to the colonel commanding the Forty-seventh Pennsylvania, had smelled of unwashed men and stale food. He had been waiting there when the girl came in, looking for an officer to speak with about her father, who had been arrested. She had started with Wake, not realizing that he wasn’t an army officer, until he had gently introduced her to the officer of the day on duty at the fort. Wake had stood by while she explained her problem and her fears to the army first lieutenant, a rank equal to Wake’s naval rank of master. The lieutenant had looked like he wasn’t even listening to Linda’s plea and then had had the arrogance to tell her that her father was lucky he had not been shot after pushing away a sergeant from the regiment who had demanded that he give way in the street to a patrol of soldiers. The lieutenant went on to suggest, with a leer on his face, that the girl might want to stay away from the fort because even though she was a Reb, she was exciting the soldiers there.
Wake had stood there in dumbfounded silence as the army lieutenant completed his show of superiority. Wake then asked the girl to follow him outside the room and to wait outside while he spoke to the young officer, who appeared to be all of about twenty-one, obviously a political appointee. Wake remembered his rage boiling up within when he confronted the little, arrogant, sniveling bastard of a boy. His quarterdeck voice came out as he ordered the army officer to take him immediately to his commanding officer, the colonel. The snide remarks of the onlooking orderly staff stopped, and they watched in terror while the formerly quiet naval officer’s face transformed into something maniacal. The lieutenant started to talk but no sound came out. He gestured for Wake to follow him to the colonel’s office.
Wake remembered striding through the adjutant’s office, bringing the lieutenant along with him, straight into the colonel’s office. As the surprised colonel looked up from his desk, Wake stated in a voice loud enough for half the soldiers in the fort to hear, “Sir, Naval Master Peter Wake requests permission to report the conduct, unbecoming of an officer, of this man here, to the colonel!”
The astonished regimental commander replied in the affirmative, more out of curiosity than anything else, and W
ake related the events of the guard room. When he was done, Wake looked at the terrified lieutenant and asked him if the recital of his behavior was correct. He received a mumbled agreement.
One hour later the father of the beautiful girl was released pending trial, the lieutenant had disappeared, and he knew that he would see that girl again. For the next several days they had seen each other about the town, each time greeting and talking as if they were friends with no war separating their lives.
Then one evening Wake saw her at sunset at the northwest corner of the town, standing alone and staring at the horizon. He walked over to her and they embraced immediately, with no hesitation or awkwardness. He had held her for a long time until they kissed. They held that kiss while the sun set in a flaming crescendo, and Wake knew a peace as he held her that had eluded him for years. That was the real beginning of his hopeless yearning for her.
They made secret rendezvous in the evenings at places like the cemetery where no would see or report them. The rendezvous eventually became longer and more involved. Wake understood that Linda Donahue, unlike any other girl in his life, had come to completely possess his feelings. But it came as a surprise to his logical mind that this devotion posed no deep concern. Indeed, when they were together he came to know a happiness unknown to him so far in life.
At the Edge of Honor (The Honor Series) Page 7
